that it is not a mere illusion, if it has not been duly measured with other views of the same. No conclusion is trustworthy which has not been tried by enemy as well as friend; no traditions have a claim upon us which shrink from criticism, and dare not look a rival in the face. Now this is precisely the weak point of Protestantism in this country. It is jealous of being questioned; it resents argument; it flies to State protection; it is afraid of the sun; it forbids competition. How can you detect the sham, but by comparing it with the true? Your artificial flowers have the softness and brilliancy of nature, till you bring in the living article fresh from the garden; you detect the counterfeit coin by ringing it with the genuine. So is it in religion. Protestantism is at best but a fine piece of wax-work, which does not look dead, only because it is not confronted by that Church which really breathes and lives. The living Church is the test and the confutation of all false Churches; therefore get rid of her at all hazards; tread her down, gag her, dress her like a felon, starve her, bruise her features, if you would keep up your mumbo-jumbo in its place of pride. By no manner of means give her fair play; you dare not. The dazzling brightness of her glance, the sanctity beaming from her countenance, the melody of her voice, the grace of her movements, will be too much for you. Blacken her; make her Cinderella in the ashes; do not hear a word she says. Do not look on her, but daub her in your own way; keep up the good old sign-post representation of her. Let her be a lion rampant, a griffin, a wivern, or a salamander. She shall be red or black; she shall be always absurd, always imbecile, always malicious, always tyrannical. The lion shall not draw the

lion, but the man shall draw him. She shall be always worsted in the warfare with Protestantism; ever unhorsed and disarmed, ever running away, ever prostrated, ever smashed and pounded, ever dying, ever dead; and the only wonder is that she has to be killed so often, and the life so often to be trodden out of her, and her priests and doctors to be so often put down, and her monks and nuns to be exposed so often, and such vast sums to be subscribed by Protestants, and such great societies to be kept up, and such millions of tracts to be written, and such persecuting acts to be passed in Parliament, in order thoroughly, and once for all, and for the very last time, and for ever and ever to annihilate her once more. However, so it shall be; it is, forsooth, our received policy as Englishmen, our traditionary view of things, to paint up the Pope and Papists in a certain style. We have a school of painting all our own. Every character or personage has its own familiar emblem: Justice has her balance, Hope her anchor, Britannia her trident. Again, history has its conventional proprieties: Richard the First was the lion-hearted, and Richard the Third was the crookback; William the First was the Conqueror, and William the Third, "the pious, glorious, and immortal." These are our first principles: they are unalterable; like the pillars of heaven, touch them, and you bring our firmament down. True or false is not the question; there they are. So is it in the view we take of Popery; its costume is fixed, like the wigs of our judges, or the mace of our mayors. Have not free-born Britons a right to think as they please? We rule Popery to be what we it is, not by history, but by act of Parliament; not by sight and hearing, but by the national will. It is the

say

will of the Legislature, it is the voice of the people, which gives facts their complexion, and logic its course, and ideas their definition.

Now I repeat, in order to obviate misconception, I am neither assuming nor intending to prove that the Catholic Church comes from above (though, of course, I should not have become one of her children, unless I firmly held her to be the direct work of the Almighty); but here I am only investigating how it is she comes to be so despised and hated among us; since a religion need not incur scorn and animosity simply because it is not recognised as true. And, I say, the reason is this, that reasons of state, political and national, prevent her being heard in her defence. She is considered too absurd to be inquired into, and too corrupt to be defended, and too dangerous to be treated with equity and fair dealing. She is the victim of a prejudice which perpetuates itself, and gives birth to what it feeds upon.

I will adduce two or three instances of what I mean. It happens every now and then that a Protestant, sometimes an Englishman, more commonly a foreigner, thinks it worth while to look into the matter himself, and his examination ends, not necessarily in his conversion (though this sometimes happens too), but, at least, in his confessing the absurdity of the outcry raised against the Catholic Church, and the beauty or the excellence, on the other hand, of those very facts and doctrines which are the alleged ground of it. What I propose to do, then, is simply to remind you of the popular feeling concerning two or three of the characteristics of her history and her teaching, and then to set against them the testimony of candid Protestants who have examined into them. This will be no proof that those candid Protest

ants are right, and the popular feeling wrong (though certainly it is more likely that they should be right who have impartially studied the matter, than those who have nothing whatever to say for their belief but that they have ever been taught it), but, at least, it will make it undeniable, that those who do not know there are two sides of the question (that is, the bulk of the English nation), are violent because they are ignorant, and that Catholics are treated with scorn and injustice simply because, though they have a good deal to say in their defence, they have never patiently been heard.

For instance, the simple notion of most people is, that Christianity was very pure in its beginning, very corrupt in the middle age, and very pure in England now, though still corrupt every where else; that in the middle age, a tyrannical institution, called the Church, arose and swallowed up Christianity; that that Church is alive still, and has not yet disgorged its prey, except, as aforesaid, in our own favoured country; but in the middle age, there was no Christianity any where at all, but all was dark, and horrible, as bad as paganism, or rather much worse. No one knew any thing about God, or whether there was a God or no, nor about Christ or His atonement; for the blessed Virgin, and saints, and the Pope, and images, were worshipped instead; and thus, so far from religion benefitting the generations of mankind who lived in that dreary time, it did them indefinitely more harm than good. Thus the Homilies of the Church of England say, that "in the pit of damnable idolatry all the world, as it were, drowned, continued until our age" (that is, the Reformation), "by the space of above 800 years... so that laity and clergy, learned and unlearned, all ages, sects, and degrees of men, women, and children, of

whole Christendom (an horrible and most dreadful thing to think), have been at once drowned in abominable idolatry, of all other vices most detested of God, and most damnable to man." Accordingly it is usual to identify this period with that time of apostasy which is predicted in Scripture, the Pope being the man of sin, and the Church being the mother of abominations, mentioned in the Apocalypse. Thus Bishop Newton says, "In the same proportion as the power of the [Roman] empire decreased, the authority of the Church increased, the latter at the expense and ruin of the former; till at length the Pope grew up above all, and the wicked one' was fully manifested and 'revealed,' or the 'lawless one,' as he may be called; for the Pope is declared again and again not to be bound by any law of God or man." "The tyrannical power thus described by Daniel and St. Paul, and afterwards by St. John, is, both by ancients and moderns, generally denominated Antichrist, and the name is proper and expressive enough, as it may signify both the enemy of Christ and the vicar of Christ'." "The mind of Europe was prostrated at the feet of a priest," says a dissenting writer. "The stoutest hearts quailed at his frown. Seated on the throne of blasphemy, he 'spake great words against the Most High,' and

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thought to change times and laws.' but all stood in awe of his power.

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he bewitched the people.'

Many hated him, Like Simon Magus, Like Nebuchadnezzar,

whom he would he slew."" I need not give you the trouble of listening to more of such language, which you may buy by the yard at the first publisher's shop you fall in with. Thus it is the man paints the lion. Go

1 Dissert. 22.